Happy Mother's Day!!!

We celebrated my first official Mother's Day today! This Mother's Day is extra special because we finally have Maelyne home with us after a very long wait! Since it is a Sunday, we attended church as we usually do and had family lunch at the Alfresco's Italian Restaurant. It is also Maelyne's 15th monthsarry so we had a double celebration. Maelyne was napping when we got to the restaurant and we're glad she woke up before we were done so she got to taste some Italian food. Everything we had was delicious! I had spa pedicure the day before and the massage gift card my hubby got for me, I will have to make an appointment later. My flowers were beautiful! To also make this day memorable, we upgraded our cellphones so we can download a bunch of pictures of our daughter Maelyne!

Before we went home, we went to Walmart and bought 2 geranium flowers to plant in the backyard. One plant to honor and remember Maelyne's birthmother and the other for her late grandma Marina (Henry's mom). Hopefully both plants will blossom this summertime and live for a long time. For my mom, we visited her yesterday and took her out to dinner. I also had her hair permed so she looks gorgeous and gave her pink roses and a picture of Maelyne with a card for her grandma.

Last Saturday we attended Kaelyn Cherie's (Maelyne's niece on the Eguilos side) baptism in Long beach. She met the rest of her cousins and Aunts and Uncles there. As usual she thinks they are strangers but after a while she became comfortable with them. She was up until about 11:00 pm socializing. We can tell she enjoyed being with them.

Henry went back to his job on May 4th. I thought we would not survive without him but we did fine. I admit it is a lot easier when the two of us are here but we have to do the best we can to take care of our daughter. Maelyne will have some tantrums but they were manageable. We started going out just the two of us. I try to avoid the long trips (30 minutes the longest so far) because she sits in the back of the car by herself. For the last 5 weeks she always had someone right next to her everytime she rides in the car. I also left her one time with her Aunt Vangie for a couple of hours to test how she does without both her mom and dad. I could not help but think about her though so I hurried back to Vangie's house just to find out she did really good and was not even looking for me. But I did miss her.

A couple of good news we heard this week: Maelyne's cousin, Christine is having a baby boy and she's due the last week of September. On the Eguilos side, cousin Stephen's girlfriend is also having a baby sometime in October this year. So, Maelyne will again become an aunt! Both sides of the family are just getting bigger and bigger.

Mom and Maelyne...

Maelyne feeding mom...

Flower planted in honor of Maelyne's birthmother...

For the late grandma Marina...

With Grandma Cadia the day before Mother's Day...

With cousins, aunts & uncles on the Eguilos side...

With cousins on the Edra side...

I think Maelyne will be a pianist...

Maelyne trying to stand up...

Trip to Palm Springs...

Maelyne had her first out of town trip to Palm Springs on 4/29/09 to 5/1/09. Grandma came along with us since she has not visited this place yet. It was nice to have her with us. It was an almost 2 hour ride by car and so far this is the longest Maelyne has ever sat in her carseat. We can tell she hated being strapped that long so we had to stop after an hour drive so she can get off the carseat. She was still uneasy but we made it to the resort just fine. We checked-in at the Palm Springs Resort and Spa in a 2-bedroom villa at about 4:00 pm. Luckily we had the view of the swimming pool and the water slide. At night, Maelyne had a little bit of a problem sleeping probably because she was in a different bedroom but after a lot of turning from side to side she finally went to sleep. In the morning we had some shopping at the Cabazon Outlet. The weather was in the mid 70's so it was very comfortable. During lunch at the foodcourt, I saw a group of women with familiar faces, they were former Hybritech employees where I used to work. They told me there's about 25 of them just having a girl's weekend getaway in Palm Springs. Nice! I introduced Maelyne to them and they were pleased to meet her.
On our way back to the resort, we dropped off grandma at the Morongo Casino where she played the slot machines for a while and luck was in her favor. She left the casino with extra cash in her wallet. Good job grandma! Aren't you glad we brought you there. he! he!
Back at the resort, we put on the bathing suit we just bought for Maelyne and we headed to the swimming pool (at the 1 1/2 feet deep, of course). Remember when we were in China, she hated to bathe but now she loves the water. We played in the water with the ball for a while and she had fun! It was time to go back to our room and have dinner with grandma.
We checked out around 9:00 am on Friday and had breakfast at the IHOP restaurant. Maelyne enjoyed her pancakes and some scrambled eggs.

Having a fun time with grandma...

Maelyne loves the pool...